


The Portrait of Walburga Black

by veeagainst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Family, Creepy, Gen, Oscar Wilde tribute, Sirius's childhood, The Picture of Dorian Grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 18:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1195266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veeagainst/pseuds/veeagainst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius, as a child, accompanied his mother to the painting of her portrait. The portrait turned out to be much more than it seemed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Portrait of Walburga Black

In the winter, Sirius’s mother always smelled faintly of the Arctic, for she wore a snowy white fox fur around her shoulders whenever she ventured outdoors. The purity of its colour – the way that it rested atop her ebony winter robes – mirrored the contrast between her cream-coloured skin and her yards of silky black hair.

The story went – and Sirius believed it not just because Bellatrix had told him but because he knew his mother – that the fox had arrived, alive and imported from the exotic lands above the Arctic Circle, in his mother’s London apartments the morning after she’d agreed to marry his father. He had sent it as a betrothal gift – possibly with the double meaning that his bride-to-be had a heart made, admirably, of ice – and she had accepted the gift – possibly acknowledging the truth of his statement – and had then performed the Killing Curse upon the helpless creature, ordered her house elf to skin it, and turned it into her favourite winter fashion accessory.

            “How does it look, my darling?” she asked now, cupping her eldest son’s cheek in a hand weighted down with silver and diamond rings. Sirius thrilled to feel the freezing bands touch his face, alternating with the warmth of her palm and long fingers. He reached out and turned the fox’s head slightly so that the eyes did not stare directly at him. Glass or no, he had always been convinced that they were crying out to him, as if he was their compatriot. He let one hand slide up the silky fur between its ears and hoped that somehow, somewhere, it understood that he felt sorry for it.

            “There, mother,” he said, stepping back and nodding.

            She twisted her full mouth into a smile and reached for the glass of red wine atop the chest of drawers. “Will you fetch me my perfume?”

            Sirius opened one of the drawers on her vanity and looked carefully through the collection of fragile glass bottles. “Why do you need to wear perfume if you’re having your portrait done?” he asked, making sure to touch each cold stopper at least once.

            “I’m going out after he finishes,” she replied. Sirius watched her pale reflection in the mirror drain the glass, set it down with a steady hand, and then sweep up her hair. “Your aunts and I are going to have a little ritual,” she added, her voice full of laughter.

            “Can I come?” Sirius asked, forgetting the perfume as he sorted through her collection of hair pins and pulled out one with a long, curled snake made of emeralds. “Here, wear the snakey.”

            She laughed aloud and shook her head, tendrils of silky curls pooling in the hollows of her collarbone. “Something red, darling. And don’t let your father hear you calling the ouroboros ‘snakey.’”

            He set it down and pursed his lips. “I want to come with you, mother.”

            “Something red,” she repeated, and he obediently plucked out twin strands of rubies with silver clips at the ends. “Much better.”

            “Mother…”

            “No, darling,” she said, reaching out and grazing her fingers through his hair. She laughed again. “Girls only.”

            Sirius sat down on the velvet sofa and sulked. “That’s not a fair rule to use.”

            His mother finished folding her hair into the clips and, turning, crouched before him. The velvet edges of her robe’s long sleeves trailed along his arms as she cupped his cheek again. “What will I do when my favourite son has gone off to school?” she asked softly. “Who will I miss when I go out?”

            Sirius pursed his lips. “You’ll have to miss me all the time.”

            “Oh?” she asked, arching one thin eyebrow. “Is that an order?”

            “Won’t you?” he asked, less sure of himself. He could not imagine his mother sitting at home and missing anyone, even if he wanted her to, no matter how selfish and childish he was. “Mother, you will miss me, right?”

            She touched the tips of her fingers to his forehead, nose, and lips. “I already do, darling.” Abruptly, she stood and turned back to the mirror. “Did you choose my perfume?”

            Sirius leapt to find just the right one, waiting anxiously as she looked at his choice and then lifted her sleeves so he could dab the oily liquid along the purple veins on the inside of her wrists. With a hint of peppermint masking something far wilder, she smelled like a forest after the first snowfall. Sirius watched her pull on her gloves and then pulled on his own, struggling into his fur-lined winter robe just so she would help him pin it shut. She tugged the silver pin through the thick cloth with practised ease, her fingers deftly manoeuvring away from the sharp point.

            They left the house and walked down London’s icy streets, his mother always ahead, her cheeks flushed with the cold and her fox fur tugged tightly around her neck, while Sirius trotted behind, catching up only to fall back as the crowds of holiday shoppers surged around them. They parted for his mother, averting their gazes and at times walking into traffic just to make her a pathway, but he was caught in her slipstream and had to dodge them on his own. He wondered when he would be such a powerful wizard that he could make masses of people move away so he could walk in peace; he wondered what it would be like to be as tall as his mother, not to be buried and squished between snow-wet wool coats and unable to see anyone’s face as he walked.

            The artist’s studio was buried in a niche in a church wall near Regent’s Park. Sirius’s mother knew exactly where, but Sirius did not understand how she chose where to stop on the pavement. She caught her son’s gloved hand in her own and whispered the words and they melted into a doorway. Sirius watched the Muggles move around them, pulsating in and out of his field of vision as they passed the magical barrier surrounding the doorstep.

            “Lady Black,” said a voice, and Sirius twisted to see a handsome man with smudges of paint on his fashionable robe standing in the doorway. “And… who is this?”

            “This is my favourite son,” his mother said silkily, her hand waving in the air above Sirius’s head. Sirius stepped forward and met the man’s eyes. “Sirius.”

            “Young Master Black,” the man said, bowing low and winking. “Well met.”

            “Enough,” his mother said, the laughter back in her voice. “I’ve walked half a mile to get here with colour in my cheeks.”

            The man bowed again and motioned them through the doorway and into a tiny room that smelled of paint and something else – Sirius looked to his right and saw a potion bubbling over an open fire, blue fog wafting gently from it -- and said, “I’ll find you a chair, Master. And you,” he added, catching Sirius’s mother’s hand and raising it to his lips, “you must sit here.” He waved his wand and a low velvet couch appeared, almost identical to the one in her chamber at Grimmauld Place.

            She allowed him to kiss her ring and then draped herself across the couch while the artist fashioned Sirius a small chair placed to the side. Sirius sat down and watched as she arranged the folds of her robe, not looking at the man moving around the room. Once, she looked up at Sirius and smiled, waving her hand and then sweeping her hair to the side.

The artist returned with two glasses of wine and she laughingly took them and said, “This is delicate work. You must allow Sirius to drink this for you. I want a steady hand.”

            “Whatever my lady desires,” he replied mockingly. He stepped past his easel and the blank canvas upon it and gave Sirius the glass. “You heard her. You have to drink it for me.” He gave Sirius an appraising look. “Do it quickly.”

            Sirius had never had wine before. He looked to his mother, but she was now watching the artist with lowered eyelids, cupping her glass in the palm of her hand and tapping it with one ring in a slow rhythm. Sirius looked into the depths of the viscous red liquid and swirled it once, counter-clockwise, before upending the glass and draining it. The bitter taste burned a trail all the way down his throat, but he held on until it was all down and then held the glass out to the man imperiously. “This is empty.”

            The artist laughed, once, and took the empty glass. “Just like his mother,” he said.

            “I told you he was my favourite.”

            Sirius did not smile; it wouldn’t have been noble. The room had begun to swim as he watched the man conjure a half-empty bottle of wine and pour him another full glass. “Have another, favourite son.”

            “Oh really,” his mother said, continuing to sip from her glass. “He’ll keep my secrets, Andrew.”

            The artist glanced back at her and said, “Walburga, I wouldn’t want to take any chances.”

            “Oh, don’t be boring,” she replied. “At least two-thirds of the fun in this is the danger.”

            “Two-thirds?”

            “Three-quarters, even.” She fluttered her eyelids and grinned.

            He grinned too and advanced towards her. “Walburga--”

            “Call her Lady Black,” Sirius interrupted, and the artist stopped and turned back to him. Feeling sick to his stomach, Sirius upended his second glass of wine and drank all of it. If this was the price of admission into the adult world, he would pay in full to keep this man away from his mother.

            “Sorry,” the artist said mockingly after Sirius had handed him the glass again. “Another?”

            “No,” his mother interjected. “And you will call me Lady Black.”

            Sirius leaned back against the chair and shut his eyes, trying to keep the world from tilting, but it was no use. He heard the shifting of wood upon the stone floor, the first strokes of the brush, and then his eyelids became impossibly heavy and he sank into a deep sleep.

            His mother’s voice woke him. “Darling.”

            “Mother?” He opened his eyes just as her fingers lifted off his eyelids. The fox’s head hung low, the eyes staring into his own. He felt sick and his head pounded. “Mother…”

            “Come along, darling. You’re going home.”

            He sat up straight in the chair and reached for her sleeve. “Are you still going to…”

            “Yes.” She glanced behind her, into the shadows of the room. It seemed to have grown impossibly dark; all of the candles had blown out except for a low one dripping wax onto the easel. Sirius could see that the canvas was dark, with a few pale marks that might have represented a face and hands, but he could not make out the figure upon it.

            “Is your portrait finished?”

            “Yes, darling. I’m going to send it home with you. Tell Kreacher where to hang it.” She took his hands and tugged him to his feet. “My darling son,” she whispered, suddenly drawing him against her and stroking his hair. He buried his face in the crook of one of her arms; he could feel her breasts, pressing against him, as he thought of how she smelled like a frozen land. He clung to her as long as she would let him. After she had pushed him away, he followed her with his eyes as she moved around the room, sweeping her wand across the canvas and saying a charm over it, then returning to place it beside the fire.

            “I want you to Floo home now, darling, is that all right?”

            Sirius saw, behind her, the long, low figure upon the couch. It was not moving. “Mother?”

            She followed his eyes and said, “This is an important lesson for you, darling.”

            He watched her as she stepped forward and crouched before him. “What lesson, mother?”

            “When someone who is not of the House of Black has outlived his or her usefulness, sometimes it is necessary to hasten his or her departure from this world.”

            Sirius swallowed and waited for her to continue. Her lessons always came with more explanation than that.

            “You will know,” she said, her fingers caressing his face, “when the time is right. Andrew painted a very special portrait for me, but he couldn’t be allowed to discuss it.” She ran her fingers across his lips and said, “Don’t tell your father.”

            “No, mother,” Sirius whispered.

            “Do you understand the lesson?”

            “Yes, mother.”

            “Good.” She stood up and shifted the fox fur. “When you are older, I will teach you when it is appropriate to determine if a member of the House of Black has outlived his or her usefulness.”

            Sirius nodded and reached for her hand, but she had already moved away, towards the fire.

            “Come here, darling,” she said, and he came, accepting a handful of Floo powder from a pouch she kept in one of her pockets. They were at the fire; the potion and its cauldron had disappeared. Sirius took the edge of the heavy canvas in one hand as she bent down and pressed her warm lips to the corner of his mouth. “I will be home tomorrow, my love,” she murmured, straightening up and moving back as he threw down the powder and called out the name of the house.

            Back at Grimmauld Place, Kreacher accepted the portrait and hung it in the entryway, surrounded by a dark wooden frame. Sirius stared into the shapes, the delicate strokes and the bold, that made up his mother’s face, and watched as Kreacher placed a Permanent Sticking Charm upon it.

            “Beautiful, isn’t she?” said a voice from the doorway, and Sirius turned away, startled.

            “Master Black,” Kreacher muttered, bowing low.

            Sirius’s father stepped into the pool of light that seemed to emanate from the portrait. “Fetch me a drink,” he said to the house elf, waving his hand. “You know what I like.” Kreacher skittered away, down to the kitchen, and Sirius looked up at his mother again and listened to his father’s heavy breath.

            His father only spoke again once Kreacher had returned, bearing a tumbler of something amber that seemed to glow with an inner fire. Sipping from it and frowning, he said, “She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”

            Sirius said, “Yes, father.”

            “Of course, you’d think so,” his father said, tossing back the rest of the drink. “You’re her favourite.”

            Sirius saw his brother, standing at the end of the hallway, having come downstairs to see their father. Regulus’s lips were in a thin line; he knew whom his mother adored and whom she ignored. “Yes, father,” Sirius said, unable to look at his brother and looking instead at the portrait.

            He didn’t see his father’s hand, although he should have anticipated it. It caught him on the cheekbone, a sharp rebuke delivered with the added force of a heavy onyx ring. “You weren’t always,” his father said, just as calmly as if they were having a chat over tea; Sirius had both his hands to his face, feeling the sticky blood coming from his cheek and trying to cover the sudden ringing in his ear. “And you won’t be forever.”

            Sirius looked down the corridor; Regulus had disappeared. He shut his eyes and tried not to cry, but as always, it didn’t work. And once his father caught his son crying, he dragged him by the arm to his study and hit him some more and, with every blow, called his mother a lying bitch, and a whore, and the most evil, perfect, beautiful thing that had ever existed.

            His father eventually sent him to bed. Regulus crept in a few minutes later with a bowl of ice and some of their mother’s willow salve and wiped Sirius’s tears on the cotton sleeve of his pyjamas. Regulus wound up asleep in Sirius’s bed, holding tightly to his brother’s hand. Sirius lay awake, throbbing pain in various parts of his body, and listened to the silence outside his window. The snow falling outside muffled everything: the footsteps of the foxes in the square, the lorries passing in the street, arguments and declarations of love and everything in between.  

            Once he was certain that his brother was asleep, he crawled out of bed and tugged on his thick winter robe and a pair of slippers. He walked down the stairs, his own steps muffled in the enveloping silence of the night, and lit a candle in his father’s study. He placed it in a heavy brass candleholder and walked out to the entryway, to stand beneath his mother’s portrait. She shifted on her velvet couch and adjusted her fox fur, not looking at her son as he stood shivering before her. Even painted, he could not meet those glass eyes.

            “Mother,” he whispered finally. “Mother, don’t come home.”

            The portrait shifted and looked down at him, one eyebrow raised. “Is that my favourite son?” she asked, but her voice rasped and grated. Sirius jumped and stepped back, terrified by the depth within it.

            “Mother?” he whispered.

            “Sirius,” she replied, leaning forward. The skin around her eyes shifted slightly and for a moment she was a hag; then it was gone, as if an optical illusion, and she was perfect once more. “Draw the curtains over me, darling. Don’t let your father see.”

            The voice was low and insistent. Sirius, shaking, said, “He already did, mother, I’m so sorry…”

            “He may have seen,” she said, “but he didn’t understand.” The hand that held the glass of wine moved and for a second its skin fell away, revealing thick white maggots teaming beneath. “He can’t.”

            “Mother,” Sirius whimpered. “Mother, what is…”

            “Draw the curtains,” she said, her voice lower still. “Draw the curtains over me, Sirius.”

            “But mother…”

            “You must,” she said, and her jaw slid out of place, momentarily, exposing a gaping grey skull. “You must not let her see.”

            “Hasn’t she already…”

            “It’s part of the spell, Sirius, draw the curtains.”

            “But mother…”

            The fox fur shifted, blood trickling between its sharp teeth. “Sirius…”

            He heard the door open behind him and he leapt forward and dragged the curtains across the portrait just as his mother stepped inside the house, shaking out her sleeves in a sliver of yellow light from a streetlamp.

            “Darling,” she said, and he ran to her, flinging his arms around her waist and sobbing into her robe. “Oh, darling, did you look at it?”

            He gasped into the fabric. “What is it?”

            She raised his face with her hand and whispered, “Did he touch you?”

            “Mother, what’s wrong with it?”

            She let go of his face with a kind of calm violence and said, “It’s not something you can understand now. Is your father asleep?”

            “I don’t know,” Sirius sniffled. “I think so. He sent me to bed.”

            She was not looking at him. “As well he should have. It’s far too late. Go to bed.”

            “But, mother, the portrait…”

            She touched her fingers to his mouth and said, “Go to bed, darling. Don’t think of it.”

            Sirius gathered up his robe and watched her walk swiftly past him and up the stairs. He heard the door to his father’s bedroom slam, and a few seconds later the beginnings of a fight. He put his hand to his cheek and sat down against the wall, beneath the curtains.

He waited until the fighting had stopped and he was certain that his mother was safe before he fell asleep. 


End file.
